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What causes dementia?

April 6 2014

Dementia is the result of brain cells being damaged in an ongoing way. This happens as a result of a number of different diseases, sometimes referred to as ‘types’ of dementia. It is not an inevitable part of ageing.

Some of the more common diseases that cause dementia include:

Alzheimer’s disease (62%): A physical disease caused by changes in the structure of the brain and a shortage of important chemicals that help with transmission of messages.

Vascular dementia (17%): Caused by problems in the supply of blood to the brain, commonly cause by a stroke or a series of small strokes.

Mixed dementia (10%): A type of dementia where a person has a diagnosis of both Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

Dementia with Lewy bodies (4%): One of the less common forms of dementia, it is caused by irregularities in brain cells. Leading to symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

Rarer causes of dementia (3%): There are many rarer causes diseases and syndromes that can lead to dementia or dememtia-like symptoms, including Corticobasal degeneration and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Fronto-temporal dementia (2%): rare when all ages are taken into account but relatively common in people under 65, it is a physical disease that affects the brain. [1]

Other less common causes of dementia are:

Huntington’s disease

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)

AIDS related dementia

Korsakoffs Syndrome

The term ‘Mixed’ is used when dementia has more than one cause. For example a person may have both Alzheimer’s disease and Vascular dementia.